Providing a quality of service for various classes of service for transfer of electronic data packets

ABSTRACT

A quality of service for various classes of services for the transfer of electronic data packets is provided by establishing classes of packets for a customer and for assigning bandwidths to the classes for the customer. Accordingly, the amount of bandwidth for one type of service may vary from the bandwidth for another type of service over the same data connection. A device, such as an edge router of a network, may police the data packets being transferred by a customer to maintain the bandwidth being utilized by a given class of packets of the customer to within the assigned bandwidth for that class of the customer. The data packets may further be policed by core routers of the network may also to maintain the bandwidth being utilized by a given class of packets to within the assigned bandwidth for that class as specified by the service provider.

RELATED CASES

The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional ApplicationNo. 60/673,110, filed on Apr. 20, 2005, and entitled “Quality of ServiceDesign for Various Classes of Service Being Supported on aTelecommunications Network”, the contents of which are incorporatedherein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to the transfer of electronic data packetsthrough a network. More particularly, the present invention relates toproviding quality of service for various classes of service for thetransfer of electronic data packets.

BACKGROUND

Electronic data packets are transferred from one computer system toanother through a network. Networks range from local area networks(LANs) such as home networks and office networks to wide area networks(WANs) such as the Internet. To move data packets from one computersystem to another, in certain cases the packets are routed through oneor more networks. For routing a packet, the packet may specify adestination address or the destination address may be otherwise known,and intermediate routers within the network receive the packet andforward it downstream based on the destination address.

Moving data packets through the network consumes limited networkresources and requires a certain amount of time for the data packets toreach their destinations. The rate at which data packets can be movedfrom one point to another is referred to as the bandwidth, usuallyexpressed in data bits per second. Each communication link in a networkhas a fixed amount of bandwidth available for carrying data packets.

When customers purchase network access, the purchase involves acquiringa certain amount of bandwidth between the router or other communicationdevice located at the customer premises and an edge router locatedwithin a network of a service provider. The edge router may have manyports connected to many different customers, and the edge router has oneor more ports connected to core routers of the service provider network.The edge router has a limited amount of bandwidth for exchanging packetsthrough each port to the customers as well as a limited amount ofbandwidth for exchanging packets through the port linked to the corerouter. The total bandwidth offered to the customers is bounded by thebandwidth available between the edge router and the core router.

Customers may desire to transfer packets for various types or classes ofservices, such as those defined by Request for Comments (RFC) 2597. Forexample, a single customer may utilize the network to transfer packetsfor a real-time service such as for voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP)telephone calls, while also transferring packets for an interactiveservice such as video, while also transferring packets for businessservices such as access to remote file servers, while also transferringpackets for more general services such as Internet surfing. However, intransferring all of these packets of various services, the customer mayexperience poor quality services because not enough bandwidth isavailable for one service due to the bandwidth being used for packets ofother services. For example, VoIP call quality may become unacceptablebecause the data connection to the network is using a substantial amountof bandwidth for Internet surfing and file transfers.

SUMMARY

Exemplary embodiments described herein address these and other issues byproviding devices, computer program products, and methods that establisha quality of service for various classes of service for the transfer ofelectronic data packets. The packets for the various types of servicesmay be marked within a given class by the customer. The customer maypurchase a certain amount of bandwidth and have that bandwidth beallocated across the various classes. The transfer of packets by thecustomer may then be maintained within the bandwidth constraints by theedge router policing the data packets being transferred in each classrelative to the bandwidth assigned to each class. Furthermore, corerouters may also maintain the transfer of packets within bandwidthconstraints set by the service provider for the core of the network.Accordingly, packets for services requiring more bandwidth may beprovided with more bandwidth than packets for services requiring lessbandwidth.

According to one embodiment, a computer program product is provided thatincludes instructions that when performed by a computer perform actsincluding receiving electronic data packets from a plurality ofcustomers, wherein the packets are classified according to markingsprovided by each customer that identify the class of service to whicheach packet belongs. The acts further include detecting the marking ofeach packet and recognizing which customer submitted the packet, andacting upon the packets in accordance with a bandwidth assigned for eachclass of service for each customer to forward the packets within theassigned bandwidth.

According to another embodiment, a device is provided for establishing aquality of service for various classes of service for electronic datapackets received from a plurality of customer networks. The deviceincludes a plurality of customer ports, wherein each customer portexchanges electronic data packets with a customer network. The deviceincludes a memory that stores a set of classes of service for eachcustomer port and stores a bandwidth for each class stored for eachcustomer port. The device further includes a processor that providesbandwidth for the electronic data packets exchanged through theplurality of customer ports in accordance with the class of theelectronic data packets detected from markings of the electronic datapackets and in accordance with the bandwidth assigned to the class foreach customer port.

According to another embodiment, a method is provided for providing aquality of service for various classes of service for electronic datapackets. The method involves receiving packets from a plurality ofcustomers, wherein the packets are classified according to markingsprovided by each customer that identify the class of service to whicheach packet belongs. The method further involves detecting the markingof each packet and recognizing which customer submitted each packet andforwarding the packets within the assigned bandwidth assigned for eachclass and customer.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows an exemplary configuration of a service provider networkinterconnecting customers.

FIG. 2 shows components of an edge router of the service providernetwork according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 3 shows communications of packets properly marked for variousclasses of service from a customer device and to an edge router of theservice provider network according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 4 shows communications of packets improperly marked for variousclasses of service from a customer device to an edge router of theservice provider network according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 5 shows communications of packets properly marked for variousclasses of service from an edge router of the service provider networkto a customer device according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 6 shows communications of properly marked packets from a customerdevice to an edge router of a service provider network for a class thatutilizes an additional burst marking upon exceeding the capacity of thestandard class upon ingress to the service provider network according toan exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 7 shows communications of properly marked packets from an edgerouter of the service provider network to a customer device for a classthat utilizes an additional burst marking upon exceeding the capacity ofthe standard class upon egress from the service provider networkaccording to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 8 shows the marking of data packets on the customer side and thecore side of an edge router of a service provider network thatimplements a label switching protocol according to an exemplaryembodiment.

FIG. 9 shows an interconnection of edge and core routers for theimplementation of pipe models for transport of packets of varyingclasses of service according to an exemplary embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Exemplary embodiments provide for a quality of service for variousclasses of service for electronic data packet transfer through a serviceprovider network. Customers may purchase a scheme of handling datapackets of different types or classes from a service provider. Theservice provider may then provide a quality of service by maintainingthe bandwidth availability for each class and policing each class toprevent a customer from exceeding the purchased bandwidth for eachclass.

FIG. 1 shows customers interconnected to a service provider network inan exemplary embodiment. The customers have customer devices that sendand receive data packets. In the example of FIG. 1, the customers haverouters 102, 104, 114, and 116 that directly interface with the serviceprovider network via service provider routers 106, 112 over an accesslink, such as a digital subscriber line, a T1 link, a frame relay link,an asynchronous transfer mode link, etc. The customer routers 102, 104,114, and 116 are on the edge of the customer network and are referred toherein as customer edge routers. Likewise, the provider routers 106, 112are on the edge of the service provider network and are referred toherein as provider edge routers.

The service provider network has a core 108 between edge routers 106,112. The core 108 includes provider core routers 110. As can be seen,the edge routers 106, 112 aggregate communications from various customeredge routers 102, 104, 114, 116 while the core routers 110 aggregatecommunications from various provider edge routers 112, 116. While thecore routers 110 are shown as a single box for purposes of illustration,it will be appreciated that the core routers 110 may include manyrouters with additional aggregation occurring.

To establish classes of service and quality of service for thoseclasses, the data packets being exchanged between the provider edgerouters 106, 112 and the customer edge routers 102, 104, 114, 116 aremarked by the sending router in a manner that is recognizable by thereceiving router. For example, the data packets may be transferredthrough an Internet Protocol (IP) in use between the edge routers suchthat a marking is included in the header of each IP packet. Specificallyin the context of IPv4, the markings may be included per RFC 791 in theType of Service (TOS) byte location, where this byte has been redefinedby RFC 2474 and RFC 2475 as Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP)values. Each class of service has a different marking to be included inthis byte of the IP header, where the customer edge router and theprovider edge router are configured to recognize the same markings forthe same classes of service.

The class of service is maintained during transfer through the core 108.However, the core 108 may utilize a different marking scheme torecognize and transfer the packets of the various classes. For example,the core 108 may utilize a label marking scheme such as MultiprotocolLabel Switching (MPLS). In such a case, the provider edge router 106,112 maps between the DSCP marking from the customer and the MPLS markingof the core. This mapping is discussed in more detail below.

FIG. 2 shows the components of a provider edge router 106, 112 forrecognizing the classes of service and for implementing the quality ofservice for the various classes according to exemplary embodiments. Theprovider edge router 106, 112 includes a processor 202, such as ageneral-purpose programmable processor or a dedicated purpose processor,where this processor implements policer logic and label marking logic.As discussed below, the policer logic ensures that a given customertransferring packets via the edge router is not exceeding the bandwidthfor a given class. The policer may also perform additional functionssuch as borrowing from bandwidth for one class of service to allowadditional bandwidth for a different class, and establishingsupplemental burst classes for one or more classes, where the burstclass is used to handle packets exceeding the bandwidth for the primaryclass.

The processor 202 communicates with a memory device 204 that stores dataincluding data packets being queued for transfer out of the provideredge router. The processor 202 implements queues for the various classesby recognizing the class from the markings of incoming packets andqueues the packets accordingly for transfer. The memory 204 may alsostore the quality of service parameters including the classes to berecognized for a given customer and the bandwidth allocated per classfor each customer. Accordingly, the policer logic of the processor 202may rely upon this customer data when handling packets being exchangedthrough a port assigned to a particular customer.

Port transceivers 206 are also included to handle the physical exchangeof the data packets. The port transceivers serve to physically send andreceive the data packets over the wired or wireless connection betweenthe provider edge router and the customer edge router. Each port isassigned to a particular customer so that data being exchanged through aparticular port can be policed by the processor 202 according to thecustomer parameters stored in memory 204.

Furthermore, at least one port transceiver is also included in the setof port transceivers 206 in order to send and receive data packets overthe connection between the provider edge router and the core router(s).Network level quality of service parameters stored in memory 204 may beapplied by the processor 202 to ensure that the proper bandwidth is usedfor each class of service being exchanged with core routers.

FIGS. 3-7 show examples of the transfer of specific classes of datapackets between the customer and provider edge routers. These figuresillustrate the application of ingress and egress queues and labelmarking procedures being performed by the provider edge routers 106,112. Tables 1-3 below illustrate one example of the classes of service,queue names being used, queue configuration being used, DSCP markingsbeing used, and label switching markings being used. Table 1 defines theingress queues of the provider edge router relative to the customer,Table 2 defines the egress queues of the provider edge router relativeto the customer, and Table 3 defines the queues in the core network. Inthis example, there are five classes of service mapped to four queuesfor data packet traffic from customers. The provider edge routerclassifies these five classes of service to five classes of service inthe core and four queues.

TABLE 1 Ingress Queues from Customer DiffServ Class Queue Name QueueConfiguration (DSCP) Description Low Latency LLQ/Tail Drop EF VoiceInteractive MDRR/Tail Drop AF41 Interactive video CS6 Routing UpdatesBusiness Priority MDRR/minimum AF21 Business data bandwidth Default MDRRminimum 00 All other traffic bandwidth

TABLE 2 Egress Queues to Customer DiffServ Class Queue Name QueueConfiguration (DSCP) Description Low Latency LLQ/Tail Drop EF VoiceInteractive MDRR/Tail Drop AF41 Interactive video CS6 Routing UpdatesBusiness Priority MDRR/minimum AF21 Business data bandwidth DefaultMDRR/minimum 00 All other traffic bandwidth

TABLE 3 Egress Queues to Core DiffServ IP MPLS EXP Queue Name QueueConfiguration (DSCP) Markings Low Latency LLQ/Tail Drop EF 5 InteractiveCBWFQ AF41/CS6 6/7 Priority Data MDRR/WRED AF21 2/3 Business Best EffortMDRR/WRED 01 1 Internet Best Effort MDRR/WRED 00 0

A class for voice over IP (VoIP) is supported by a Low latency/Priorityqueue EF in this example. The VoIP class uses Low Latency Queuing (LLQ)feature. A maximum bandwidth is allocated to this queue according toVoIP capacity planning from the customer's site. VoIP will be policed tothe configured bandwidth when the interface experiences congestion. Thisclass is mapped to the Premium backbone class on the core routers usingan MPLS EXP value of 101 (5).

A Video class AF41 of this example is policed to a maximum bandwidth.This will ensure that the Best Effort queue is protected. This class ismapped to the optimized backbone class using an MPLS EXP value of 111(7).

A Business Data class AF21 of this example will be supported by aminimum bandwidth guaranteed class. This guarantees that bandwidth willalways be available for packets in this class. An active queue manager,referred to as weighted random early detection (WRED) is used for thisqueue and is set to react to drop preference encodings following anAssured Forwarding Per-Hop-Behavior (PHB) Group. This class is mapped tothe Optimized backbone class using an MPLS EXP value of 010 (2).

A Best Effort class of this example is the default class of service forall other traffic. All traffic that does not match the other trafficclasses is mapped to the Best Effort traffic class. The Best Efforttraffic class is treated as flow-based with weighted fair queuing (WFQ).The active queue manager WRED is also used for this queue and will beset to react to drop preference encodings following the AssuredForwarding PHB Group. The class is mapped to the Best Effort backboneclass using MPLS EXP value of 000 (0).

A Control Class of this example is for routing protocols. Bandwidth isreserved for control traffic to ensure that routing protocols are notstarved for bandwidth. All control traffic originated by the edge routeris placed at the head of the queue in the default bandwidth class. Thereare no user controls to adjust the traffic mapped to this internalbehavior. Flow-based WFQ is used within the default class to ensure fairbandwidth utilization among the flows. In this example, the defaultclass is left with a maximum of 25% of the bandwidth to conform to thedefault bandwidth allocation guidelines of routing equipment such asthat from Cisco Systems, Inc. of San Jose, Calif. In another example,such as for routers from Juniper Networks of Sunnyvale, Calif., 5% ofthe bandwidth is reserved for the control class. This class is mapped tothe Control backbone class using an MPLS EXP value of 110 (6). TheNetwork control traffic shares the Interactive queue in the core withthe EXP 3 traffic.

Traffic generated by the edge router represents a special case foroutbound service policies. Some locally generated traffic is treated asany other user traffic, and the quality of service system applies theconfigured quality of service mechanisms to this traffic. An example ofsuch traffic is performance probes that are designed to measure thebehavior incurred by packets of a given class. Other locally generatedtraffic, particularly Layer 2 keep-alives and routing protocol messages,are not be subject to some quality of service features. For example,WRED may not drop Layer 2 keep-alives when the average queue depthreaches a high watermark.

FIG. 3 shows an exemplary application of the policer and labeling logicof the provider edge router 106 acting upon properly marked data packetsbeing received from the customer edge router 102. Initially, thecustomer edge router 102 has separately queued and marked the datapackets for each of the classes of service for which the customer haspurchased quality of service handling. A queue 302 maintains voicepackets marked with the DSCP EF. A queue 304 maintains video packetsmarked with the DSCP AF41. A queue 306 maintains priority businesspackets marked with the DSCP AF21. A queue 308 maintains best effortpackets marked with the DSCP 00 or left unmarked. The packets aretransferred from customer edge router 102 over the data connection tothe provider edge router 106. The customer edge router 102 may employ ascheme for scheduling the transfer of the various classes of packetsfrom the queues, where the scheme allocates a certain bandwidth to eachclass. This scheme is based on the bandwidth purchased per class fromthe network service provider by the customer. Table 4 shows an exampleof the various schemes or templates for quality of service that thecustomer may purchase, where the percentage is converted to bits persecond relative to the total bandwidth available for the connection. Ascan be seen, in most instances, the total bandwidth allocated is lessthan 100% of that which is available for the data connection in order toreserve some bandwidth for sharing, and to maintain the Best Effortpercentage at a lower percentage so that it is ranked lower for purposesof sharing the unallocated bandwidth.

TABLE 4 Quality of Service Options COS COS COS Basic Premium CustomClass Template A Template B Template C Template D Template E Template FTemplate G Template H Real-Time N/A N/A 25% 50% N/A 30% 70% 35%Interactive N/A N/A 25%  5% 50% 20%  5%  5% Business 50% 75% 25% 25% 25%25% 15% 20% Best Effort 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10%

The template percentages of Table 4 describe minimum bandwidths for eachclass of service. This means that in times of congestion, this is theminimum amount of bandwidth the queue will be serviced. The minimumbandwidth for a queue will be allowed to grow as long as there isavailable bandwidth from the other queues, e.g., the best effort queuemay have 10% minimum bandwidth, if the other queues are not using all oftheir allotted bandwidth, the best effort queue is allowed to send moretraffic if needed. The policers may be configured so that this is thecase for the best effort and business queues, which are allowed totransmit up-to line rate. The Real-Time and Interactive queues mayinstead be policed up-to a threshold and any traffic that exceeds willbe tail dropped.

In addition to the customer edge router 102 being configured to schedulethe transfer of packets based on the quality of service option that hasbeen chosen, the provider edge router 106 is configured to police theincoming packets relative to the quality of service option. The policerlogic and queue for recognizing each class of service of the provideredge router 106 is represented by policer box 310 of FIG. 3. Theincoming packets from the customer are received into the policer box 310where the DSCP marking is examined to determine the class of service. Inthis example of FIG. 3, the DSCP EF corresponds to voice so that the EFmarked packets are placed in a voice ingress queue 312 where thelabeling logic then applies the MPLS label of EXP 5. The DSCP AF41corresponds to video so that the AF41 marked packets are placed in avideo ingress queue 314 where the labeling logic then applies the MPLSlabel of EXP 7. The DSCP AF21 corresponds to business so that the AF21marked packets are placed in a business ingress queue 316 where thelabeling logic then applies the MPLS label of EXP 3. The DSCP 00corresponds to best effort so that the 00 marked packets are placed in abest effort ingress queue 318 where the labeling logic then applies theMPLS label of EXP 0.

Once properly queued and labeled for the core, the packets are placedinto the corresponding egress queues for transfer into the core. Thevoice packets are placed in a voice egress queue 320, video packets areplaced in a video egress queue 322, business packets are placed in abusiness egress queue 324, and best effort packets are placed in a besteffort egress queue 326. The packets are then forwarded into the coreaccording to the network level quality of service parameters configuredto provide appropriate bandwidth into the core for each of the classes.

In this example, the business priority traffic class has a minimumscheduled bandwidth to ensure that it will meet its service level. Thisminimum scheduled bandwidth ensures that other traffic classes cannotaffect the business priority traffic class. In addition for thisexample, the traffic demands in the business data traffic class have theability to use bandwidth from the other Classes of Service, if bandwidthis available.

A policer is implemented for real-time traffic to protect the BestEffort data class from being starved by non-rate adaptive traffic flows.Real-time traffic does not respond to link congestion (i.e. packet loss)by reducing load. If the real-time application's Call Admission Control(CAC) system is mis-configured or fails, non-policed real-time loadcould starve traffic associated with the Best Effort data class but forthe presence of the policer.

The VoIP class is configured with a LLQ feature that provides aninherent policer as part of the priority queuing implementation. Withoutthis policer, traffic mapped to a priority queue could starve otherqueues of bandwidth. The built-in LLQ policer will rate limit theIngress interface and schedule a requested percentage of the bandwidthto the EF priority queue. This prevents VoIP from starving the otherservice classes. Call managers may be configured with call-admissioncontrol to keep traffic within the limits of the low latency queue.

FIG. 4 shows an exemplary transfer of packets where the customer hasimproperly marked each of the classes of service. In this example, thevoice queue 302′ of customer edge router 102 has voice packetsimproperly marked as 06. The video queue 304′ of customer edge router102 has video packets improperly marked as AF43. The business queue 306′of customer edge router 102 has business packets improperly marked asAF32. The voice queue 308′ of customer edge router 102 has best effortpackets improperly marked as AF12.

The policer box 310 of provider edge router 106 receives the incomingpackets and recognizes none of the markings since each class isimproperly marked. Accordingly, in this example, the policer logicdirects all of the packets to the best effort ingress queue 318 as thedefault ingress queue for unrecognizable class markings. Here, thepackets are provided with an MPLS label EXP 0 corresponding to the besteffort class. The packets are then queued for transport within the besteffort egress queue 326 form which they are forwarded into the coreaccording to the network level quality of service parameters.

FIG. 5 shows an exemplary operation of the provider edge router 106 forpackets being received from the core and destined for the customer edgerouter 102. The packets are received into the appropriate ingress queuesbased on the MPLS markings of the header. Voice packets marked EXP 5 areplaced into the ingress queue 330, video packets marked EXP 7 are placedinto the ingress queue 332, business packets marked EXP 3 are placedinto the ingress queue 334, and best effort packets marked EXP 0 areplaced into the ingress queue 336. The packets are then scheduled fortransfer within egress queues where policer logic can then be applied toensure the quality of service is maintained for transfer of packets tothe customer edge router 102.

Egress queue 338 includes voice packets and the policer box 346schedules them according to the voice class bandwidth and label logicremoves the MPLS header while the DSCP marking EF of the IP header ismaintained for transfer to router 102. Egress queue 340 includes videopackets and the policer box 346 schedules them according to the videoclass bandwidth and label logic removes the MPLS header while the DSCPmarking AF41 of the IP header is maintained for transfer to router 102.Egress queue 342 includes business packets and the policer box 346schedules them according to the business class bandwidth and label logicremoves the MPLS header while the DSCP marking AF21 of the IP header ismaintained for transfer to router 102. Egress queue 344 includes besteffort packets and the policer box 346 schedules them according to thebest effort class bandwidth and label logic removes the MPLS headerwhile the DSCP marking 00 of the IP header is maintained for transfer torouter 102.

The EF class is policed at the egress point to the customer edge router102 so that only the requested EF bandwidth is allowed through egress.The EF traffic to a host site may be over subscribed for the installedcircuit, so the EF traffic is policed to ensure the AF and best effortclasses are not starved on the egress.

The Video traffic class supports real-time, interactive traffic sourceswithout letting these sources dominate link capacity during adverse orfailure conditions. A class-based policer is used to support this designdoes not disturb the allowed number of video calls to and from a site.If a site is allowed one active video call, the policer is setup so thatit does not disturb the traffic of a single call, but the policer doesnot allow a 2nd or 3rd call to startup and dominate the link capacity.The number of video calls at a site may be controlled by a form of calladmission scheme, and the policer for video traffic is implemented as afail-safe in that instance.

The business data service class may be policed for management purposes.The customer's conform rate will be transmitted and the exceed rate willalso be transmitted, but with a lower EXP setting. In times ofcongestion the exceeding bandwidth will be dropped before complyingtraffic. Using this policer, a management team of the service providerwill be able to see how much customer traffic is exceeding theirsubscribed class of service rate, without affecting customer traffic.Business data may also have a guaranteed minimum bandwidth and isallowed to make use of any available bandwidth on the link, when notused by the other classes. Unused bandwidth on an interface is allocatedto the bandwidth classes in proportion to their minimum bandwidthallocation.

Best Effort Traffic may also be policed for management purposes. Thecustomer's conform rate will be transmitted and the exceed rate will bealso be transmitted. Using this policer, the management team will beable to see how much customer traffic is exceeding their subscribedclass of service rate, without affecting customer traffic. Best effortmay also be guaranteed a minimum bandwidth, so in times of congestionfor other classes of service, this class of service will not be starvedof bandwidth.

As discussed above, the transfer of packets through the core may utilizea network level quality of service bandwidth allocation. As one example,at the network level the quality of service may be defined as followsfor each of the classes of service discussed above.

The Real-Time queue may not be given a minimum allotted bandwidth. TheReal-Time traffic through the core may be scheduled so that there isalways sufficient bandwidth available. After the Real-Time queue hastaken its bandwidth, the other queues then share the remainingbandwidth.

The Interactive queue may share EXP 7 (AF41) with routing updates CS6.The Interactive queue may be scheduled to utilize 50% of the remainingbandwidth, after the real-time queue has taken its bandwidth. WRED willbe used to differentiate between these two classes in this queue.

The AF classes of Service EXP 2 and 3 are grouped together in one queueand use WRED. EXP 3 is burst business traffic, and therefore, WRED willdrop EXP 3 before EXP 2. The AF queue will use the remainder 40% of thebandwidth, after the real-time queue has taken its bandwidth. Furtherdiscussion of the burst business traffic is provided below in relationto FIGS. 6 and 7.

The Best Effort queue uses the 10% of remaining bandwidth, after thereal-time queue has taken its bandwidth.

In this example, the Interactive, AF, and Best Effort queues will have a5:4:1 ratio. Therefore the Interactive and AF queues will have 40% morescheduled bandwidth than the Best Effort queue. This is set forth inTable 6 below.

TABLE 6 Core Network Quality of Service Core Queue Bandwidth ReservationPercentage Real-Time (EXP 5) No reservation, priority based Interactive,Network Control 50% (EXP 7, 6) AF Queue (EXP 2, 3) 40% Best Effort (EXP0, 1) 10%

The service provider network may be a core transport for a wide range ofusers, i.e. DSL home Internet, DIA, business class users for IP virtualprivate networking (IP-VPN), and wholesale users. All users may sharesimilar queues in the core such that if a Denial of Service (DOS) attackinfects the core network, all user types are affected. The DOS attackwill cause UDP network congestion. WRED will only control TCP trafficand not UDP, therefore, this traffic will potentially cause the BestEffort Class to run into saturation, affecting all user types includingpriority business customers, who have taken precautions against theseattacks.

Therefore IP-VPN customers may use a Best Effort class of service whichhas a lower drop probability than the default Best Effort queue. Thisprotects the priority business customers from DOS attacks generated bythe inexperienced home DSL user. In the event of a DOS attack on thedefault Best Effort class of service, it will be isolated from thepriority business user. The maximum bandwidth allocated for the defaultBest Effort class of service will be reached and excess traffic will betail dropped. As indicated in Table 6, this Best Effort class mayutilize MPLS marking EXP 1 rather than EXP 0 such that this Best Effortclass is differentiated within the service provider network.

In addition to customers benefiting from different Best Effort queues,depending upon home customers versus business customers, the quality ofservice may provide additional burst queues for one or more classes ofservice for use in a particular quality of service option purchased bythe customer. FIGS. 6 and 7 show an example where a business class isprovided with a business priority queue and a business data burst queuefor providing additional bandwidth for transfer of business classpackets. As shown in FIG. 6, the customer edge router 102 includesbusiness queue 306 that marks the business packets as AF21. The policer310′ of provider edge router 106 then detects whether the bandwidthallocated for the business class corresponding to AF21 is being exceededby the number of AF21 packets from the customer. If so, rather thandropping the excess packets, the policer marks the packets to betransferred as EXP 2 and then marks the excess packets as EXP 3 toindicate these packets are transferred in burst mode, and the labeledpackets are placed in the ingress queue 316′ accordingly in preparationfor forwarding into the core.

At EXP 3 the customer is able to burst their data to wire speed. WRED isconfigured in this queue 316′, and in times of congestion, the EXP 3traffic is dropped before the EXP 2 (AF21) traffic. The EXP 3 trafficallows burst traffic to have a higher drop probability, but maintaininga better service than Best Effort.

FIG. 7 shows that the business data and business burst data that isreceived into the provider edge router 106 and the egress queue 342′.The policer 346′ then removes the MPLS labels and the burst andnon-burst business packets are forwarded to the customer edge router 102with the AF21 business class markings where they are received into theingress queue 352.

As shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, the AF queue is configured as a core queueand will hold the two classes of service, EXP 2 for priority data andEXP 3 for priority data burst and IP-VPN Best Effort data. The AF queueuses WRED to control traffic in times of congestion. It drops packetsbased on the drop probability settings for each class of service. Forexample, if the AF queue becomes congested, the EXP 3 traffic will bedropped first, then EXP 2 traffic. The probability that a packet will bedropped is based on the minimum threshold, maximum threshold, and markprobability denominator. When the average queue size is above theminimum threshold, WRED starts dropping packets. The rate of packet dropincreases linearly as the average queue size increases until the averagequeue size reaches the maximum threshold. The mark probabilitydenominator is the fraction of packets dropped when the average queuesize is at the maximum threshold.

For example, if the denominator is 512, one out of every 512 packets isdropped when the average queue is at the maximum threshold. When theaverage queue size is above the maximum threshold, all packets aredropped. The minimum threshold value is set high enough to maximize thelink utilization. If the minimum threshold is too low, packets may bedropped unnecessarily, and the transmission link will not be fully used.The difference between the maximum threshold and the minimum thresholdshould be large enough to avoid global synchronization of TCP hosts(global synchronization of TCP hosts can occur as multiple TCP hostsreduce their transmission rates). If the difference between the maximumand minimum thresholds is too small, many packets may be dropped atonce, resulting in global synchronization.

In order to minimize the delay associated with forwarding the packetsand any jitter, or variation in the interval spacing of the packets, theburst size or committed burst for one or more of the policers may beconstrained to a relatively small number. For example, the aggregatepolicing of the incoming packets of a data connection to a customer mayhave a committed burst set to an amount such as 200 ms. In contrast, theper class policing of the incoming packets per class of the dataconnection to the customer may have a committed burst set to a muchsmaller amount such as 10 ms. To the extent the committed burst isexhausted for a particular class, then the burst number for that classmay be replenished at the line rate. When the number of bytes availablefor transfer at the stated rate for a class have been exceeded,including any extra allocation that is available for handling hightraffic periods, the packets for that class are dropped until the numberof bytes available for transfer at the stated rate for that class isreplenished.

FIG. 8 shows that the data packet from the customer, such as an IPv4packet 802 having a DSCP code 304, is transferred from the customer tothe provider edge router 806 in a non-MPLS differentiated servicesdomain according to an exemplary embodiment. However, the provider edgerouter may forward the packets into the network core which implements anMPLS differentiated services domain. In this case, the provider edgerouter 806 encapsulates the IPv4 packet within an MPLS label therebytunneling the IPv4 packet through the MPLS domain while maintaining theclass of service handling of the data packets. The MPLS header 808includes various segments such as a label segment 810, an experimentalmarking segment 812, and additional segment 814 and time-to-live (TTL)segment 816. It will be appreciated that when tunneling the packets ofthe various classes through the MPLS domain of the network core, theMPLS label marking may change from one core router to the next dependingupon how the Per-Hop-Behavior of each core router is configured.

There are three distinct MPLS DiffServ tunneling modes which aredescribed in RFC 3270 including a uniform mode, a short pipe mode, and apipe mode. FIG. 9 shows an exemplary configuration of edge and corerouters and consideration of an inner header, e.g., the IP header withthe DSCP code, and consideration of an outer header, e.g., the MPLSheader. The inner header is relevant to the ingress provider edge router902 where the MPLS header is then applied. Thereafter through the corerouters 904 and 906, the outer header is considered. The inner header isthen relevant again at router 908, which may be an egress provider edgerouter or a penultimate provider router depending upon the pipe modechosen. Where the router 908 is an egress provider edge router, thenrouter 910 corresponds to a customer edge router. Where the router 908is a penultimate provider router, then router 910 corresponds to anegress provider edge router.

Various embodiments are described above. Details of one particularexample of an implementation follow. This example is provided only forpurposes of illustration and is not intended to limit the scope of thepresent disclosure.

Per Hop Behavior

The following lists the per hop behaviors implemented in a serviceprovider network. The following statements provide high-level guidanceon the Quality of Service QoS policies for one particularimplementation. Short pipe is used. Resource allocation must be workconserving. Four valid customer markings supported including DSCP 46 forReal-time, DSCP 34 for Interactive, DSCP 18 for business, DSCP 0 plusall other markings for best effort (default class).

Four queues in the core (Trunk) includes Real-time queue (EXP5) withRED, Interactive queue (EXP 7) with RED, Business queue/Business Burst(EXP2/3) with WRED, Business Best Effort (EXP1) with WRED for EXP 0 andBest Effort (EXP0).

Four queues on the edge (Trib) includes, Real-time queue (DSCP46),Interactive queue (DSCP34), Business queue (DSCP18), Best effort(DSCP0+all others).

IP-VPN PE Ingress from CE

Real-time (DSCP46 to EXP 5 Core) must be received with DSCP 46.Bandwidth limited on Ingress to contracted rate with policer. Conformsforward and exceeds drop. Provides policer details for management placedin Trunk-Real-time queue on core facing interface and marked EXP 5. Itis also placed in Trib-Real-time queue on “hairpin” interfaces based onCPE marked DSCP 46.

Interactive (DSCP 34 to EXP 7 Core) must be received with DSCP 34.Bandwidth limited on ingress to contracted rate with policer. Conformforward, exceed drop. Provide policer details for management placed inAF41 queue on core facing interface and marked EXP 7, and placed in AF41queue on “hairpin” interfaces.

Business (DSCP 18 to EXP2/3 Core) must be received with DSCP 18.Bandwidth policed on ingress to contracted rate with policer. Conformsforward and exceeds remark EXP 3 and forward. Provide policer detailsfor management. Compliant placed in trunk-Business queue on core facinginterface and marked EXP 2. Non-compliant (Burst) placed intrunk-Business queue on core facing interface and marked EXP 3 andplaced in Trib-Business queue on “hairpin” interfaces based on cpemarked DSCP 18.

Best Effort (DSCP0 or DSCP <>[46,34,18 to EXP1 Core] should be receivedwith DSCP 0; however all DSCP that does not match DSCP 46, DSCP 34, orDSCP 18 will be treated as Best Effort. Bandwidth is not limited oningress. Conforms forward and exceeds forward. Provides policer detailsfor management, placed in trib-Best Effort queue on “hairpin” interfacesand is placed in trunk-Business-best-effort on core facing interface andmarked EXP 1

IP-VPN PE Egress to CE is shaped on virtual interfaces to theprovisioned line rate; e.g., 512 Kbps for a 512 Kbps local loop customerand applies to all subinterfaces.

Real-time traffic (DSCP46) Bandwidth limited on egress to contractedrate with policer. Conforms forward and exceeds drop. Provides policerdetails for management and is placed in trib-Real-time queue which is apriority (llq) queue.

Interactive (DSCP34) Bandwidth limited on egress to contracted rate withpolicer. Conforms forward and exceeds drop. Provides policer details formanagement. Provides x Percent of Bandwidth not used by trib-Real-timequeue and is placed in trib-Interactive queue

Business (DSCP18) Bandwidth not limited on egress. Conforms forward andexceeds forward. Provides policer details for management and providesxPercent of Bandwidth not used by trib-Real-time queue.

Best Effort Bandwidth not limited on ingress. Conform forwards andexceeds forward. It provides policer details for management. Provides 10Percent of Bandwidth not used by Real-time queue and provide policerdetails for management.

IP-VPN PE Egress to P

Real-time (EXP5) is placed in trunk-Real-time queue on core facinginterface and marked EXP 5.

Interactive (EXP7) is placed in AF41 queue on core facing interface andmarked EXP 7. Reserves 40 percent of bandwidth remaining aftertrunk-Real-time queue is serviced. IP Prec 6 traffic is also placed inthis queue and marked EXP 6. It uses WRED to distinguish between EXP 6and EXP 7 traffic; All EXP 7 to be discarded before any EXP 6.

Business/Business Burst/Business Best Effort (EXP2/3) is placed in AF21queue on core facing interface and marked EXP 2 or 3 depending on in orout of contract. Reserves 30 percent of bandwidth remaining aftertrunk-Real-time queue is serviced. It uses WRED to distinguish betweenEXP 2 and EXP 3 traffic; All EXP 3 to be discarded before any EXP 2.

Business Best Effort (1) is placed in BBE queue. EXP is set to 1.Reserves 10 percent of bandwidth remaining after trunk-Real-time queueis serviced. It provides policer details for management and uses RED todiscard EXP 7 traffic if there is congestion. Allow EXP 6 traffic tobackup until tail drop.

Best Effort (0) is Placed in Class-default queue set EXP 0. Reserves 20percent of bandwidth remaining after trunk-Real-time queue is serviced.Provides policer details for management

Additional Technical Details

In addition to these issues the following mechanisms are implemented toensure proper Quality of Service (QOS) behaviors.

Traffic shaping is used on egress for all routes to smooth out trafficbursts. The policer burst sizes are set to one MTU on input to avoid a“burst” effect on the queues which will adversely affect QOS. Sincethere are issues with arrival rates the burst sizes on egress are set to30% greater than the ingress burst size. This avoids token bucketdepletion when traffic is received at a Gigabit Line rate buttransmitted at a much smaller line rate towards the customer. Theproblem is caused by traffic bunching up. A 1500 byte packet being readin from a CPE link will take a certain amount of time to be completelyread into the serving PE router. That same 1500 packet will then betransmitted out the core interface at a gigabit line speed. If multiplepackets are destined for the same CPE router then they could arrive atthe destination PE at a faster rate than they arrived at serving PErouter.

A second issue is that as maximum line rate, 100% utilization, isreached there is no “slack” for QOS mechanisms to deal with traffic. Tooffset this issue low speed circuits, less than 1.544 Mbps are shaped to10% less than the maximum bandwidth available. This means that a 1megabit customer would actually be shaped to 900 Kbps. For high speedcircuits the shaper is set to 5% below the maximum bandwidth available.

Related to the previous issue, is a problem when there is a virtualcircuit with much more bandwidth than the last mile circuit. Forexample, a DS-3 may be used between an Internet backbone and the framerelay switch. This DS-3 supports many customers. On the egress localloop from the frame relay switch the local loop is the actual contractedrate. For instance a 512 Kbps circuit would have a 512 Kbps local loop.If the DLCI on a DS-3 is set to shape to 512 Kbps there will be aproblem when it reaches the physically constrained 512 kbps local loop.That is because traffic shaped to 512 Kbps can actually send a littlemore than 512 kbps of traffic because of the burst capability built intothe shaper algorithm. When this excess traffic gets to the frame switchthere is exactly 512 kbps of bandwidth and the burst is randomlydiscarded. This random discard will affect all classes of service.Therefore the shape command is set to 10% below maximum on 1.544 Mbpsand below circuits and 5% below for all high speed circuits.

To facilitate transmission of voice traffic on lower speed frame relaylinks (768 Kbps and below) FRF.12 is enabled. However FRF.12 by itselfwill only fragment packets. Therefore the LLQ is enabled and thefragment size is set to 300 bytes for all packets. This size should belarger than all voice packets. The combination of FRF.12 and the LLQ QOSbehavior will allow the fragmented packets to be interleaved with thenon-fragmented voice packets which should be in the LLQ. This insuresthat small time sensitive voice packets are not delayed while largerdata packets are streamed on to the access line. In theory no voicepacket should have to wait longer than the time it takes one fragment tobe placed on the line.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described withreference to various embodiments thereof, it will be understood by thoseskilled in the art that various other changes in the form and detailsmay be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of theinvention.

1. A computer executable program product tangibly embodied on anon-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions thatwhen executed by a computer perform acts comprising: receivingelectronic packets from a plurality of users via a plurality of ports,wherein the packets are classified according to markings provided byeach user that identify a class of service to which each packet belongs;detecting the marking of each packet and recognizing which usersubmitted the packet; detecting at a port whether a user is attemptingto transfer packets of a class through the port at a bandwidth greaterthan the bandwidth assigned for that class at the port; when a userattempts to transfer packets of a class through the port at a bandwidthgreater than the bandwidth assigned for that class, holding in a queuededicated to the port the packets until time for transmission; andacting upon the packets in accordance with a bandwidth assigned for eachclass of service for each user to forward the packets with the assignedbandwidth, wherein the classes of service comprise a real-time class, aninteractive class, a business class, and a best effort class and whereinthe real time class has a priority based bandwidth allocation and theinteractive class, the business class, and the best effort class eachhas a fixed bandwidth percentage of the bandwidth remaining afterbandwidth is allotted to the real time class.
 2. The computer programproduct of claim 1, wherein the markings are located within a header ofthe electronic data packets, the acts further comprising adding labelswitching headers to each electronic data packet and wherein the labelswitching header includes a label switching marking that identifies theclass of the electronic data packet.
 3. The computer program product ofclaim 1, wherein the assigned bandwidth for at least one class is aminimum bandwidth such that when a number of packets for one of the atleast one classes exceeds the bandwidth assigned to the one class but asecond class is not utilizing all of the bandwidth assigned to thesecond class, the bandwidth not being utilized for the second class isutilized to temporarily increase the available bandwidth for the oneclass.
 4. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein a defaultclass is assigned to packets that are not marked properly to indicate aclass.
 5. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the classesof service are allocated an additional bandwidth from unallocatedbandwidth when an allocated bandwidth is exceeded by a class inproportion to the classes of services minimum bandwidth allocation. 6.The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the interactive classof service is allotted substantially 50% of the bandwidth remainingafter bandwidth is allotted to the real time class, the business classof service is allotted substantiality 40% of the bandwidth remainingafter bandwidth is allotted to the real time class, and the best effortclass is allotted substantially 10% of the bandwidth remaining afterbandwidth is allotted to the real time class.
 7. A device forestablishing a quality of service for various classes of service forelectronic data packets received from a plurality of user networks,comprising: a plurality of user ports, wherein each user port exchangeselectronic data packets with a user network, and each port is dedicatedto a particular user; a memory that stores a set of classes of servicefor each user port and stores a bandwidth for each class stored for eachuser port; and a processor that provides bandwidth for the electronicdata packets exchanged through the plurality of user ports in accordancewith the class of the electronic data packets detected from markings ofthe electronic data packets and in accordance with the bandwidthassigned to the class for each user port, wherein the processorimplements a policer and a queue in memory for each class of service foreach port, wherein the policer detects whether a user is attempting totransfer packets of a class through a user port at a bandwidth greaterthan the bandwidth assigned for the class and wherein the queue holdspackets detected by the policer until time for transmission; and whereinthe classes of service comprise a real-time class, an interactive class,a business class, and a best effort class; and wherein the real timeclass has a priority based bandwidth allocation and the interactiveclass, the business class, and the best effort class each has a fixedbandwidth percentage of the bandwidth remaining after bandwidth isallotted to the real time class.
 8. The device of claim 7, wherein themarkings are located within a header of the electronic data packets, andwherein the processor adds a label switching header to each electronicdata packet and wherein the label switching header includes a labelswitching marking that identifies the class of the electronic datapacket.
 9. The device of claim 7, wherein the policer drops packets fromthe queue for a class when the user is attempting to transfer packets ofa class through a user port at a bandwidth greater than the bandwidthassigned.
 10. The device of claim 7, wherein the assigned bandwidth forat least one class is a minimum bandwidth such that when the processordetects that a number of packets for one of the at least one classesexceeds the bandwidth assigned to the one class but a second class isnot utilizing all of the bandwidth assigned to the second class, theprocessor utilizes the bandwidth not being utilized for the second classto temporarily increase the available bandwidth for the one class. 11.The device of claim 7, wherein the processor assigns a default class topackets that are not marked properly to indicate a class.
 12. The deviceof claim 7, wherein the interactive class of service is allottedsubstantially 50% of the bandwidth remaining after bandwidth is allottedto the real time class, the business class of service is allottedsubstantiality 40% of the bandwidth remaining after bandwidth isallotted to the real time class, and the best effort class is allottedsubstantially 10% of the bandwidth remaining after bandwidth is allottedto the real time class.
 13. A method for providing a quality of servicefor various classes of service for electronic data packets, comprising:receiving packets from a plurality of users via a plurality of ports,wherein the packets are classified according to markings provided byeach user that identify a class of service to which each packet belongs,wherein the classes of service comprise a real-time class, aninteractive class, a business class, and a best effort class, andwherein the real time class has a priority based bandwidth allocationand the interactive class, the business class, and the best effort classeach has a fixed bandwidth percentage of the bandwidth remaining afterbandwidth is allotted to the real time class; detecting the marking ofeach packet and recognizing which user submitted the packet;implementing a policer and a queue in a memory for each class of servicefor each port, wherein the policer detects whether a user is attemptingto transfer packets of a class through a port at a bandwidth greaterthan the bandwidth assigned for that class at the port and wherein thequeue holds packets detected by the policer for transmission; andforwarding the packets within the assigned bandwidth for each class anduser.
 14. The method of claim 13, further comprising: receiving theforwarded packets; and forwarding the packets within the assignedbandwidth assigned for each class.
 15. The method of claim 13, furthercomprising applying a label switching header to each packet, wherein thelabel switching header includes a marking that indicates the class ofeach packet.
 16. The method of claim 13, wherein the interactive classof service is allotted substantially 50% of the bandwidth remainingafter bandwidth is allotted to the real time class, the business classof service is allotted substantiality 40% of the bandwidth remainingafter bandwidth is allotted to the real time class, and the best effortclass is allotted substantially 10% of the bandwidth remaining afterbandwidth is allotted to the real time class.